Cleaning products are commonly offered to consumers in ready to use form or in a concentrated form that requires the user to dilute the cleaning product in diluents such as water. Cleaning products such as glass cleaners and hard surface cleaners are commonly offered in spray bottles or liquid containers commonly ranging in size form one quart to one gallon. Some of these cleaning products can be refilled. Such refill containers are typically larger than the container that is used by the consumer. As such, the cleaning product and refill, if available, can take up significant shelf space in a consumer's household. Laundry cleaners are generally offered in liquid or granular form. The liquid laundry cleaners are commonly offered in liquid containers generally ranging in size form one quart to one gallon. Similar to other types of cleaning products, the laundry detergent container can take up significant shelf space in both a consumer's household. Other types of supplemental or specialty cleaners such as laundry stain removers, laundry detergent and/or bleaching additives, spot carpet cleaners, carpet odor removers, toilet bowl cleaners, tile cleaners, drain cleaners and the like are common offered to consumers in aerosol cans or liquid containers that are typically about one quart to half gallon sized containers. All of these different cleaning products require a large amount a shelf space in a consumer's home. In addition, the weight of all these cleaning products on certain types of shelving systems can result damage to the shelf system. Furthermore, the weight of the container can make it difficult for a consumer to hold, carry, lift, remove from a shelf, and restore on a shelf the consumers. Although the offering of certain types of cleaning products in liquid concentrated form can result in a reduction in the size of the cleaning product container, many concentrates are offered to consumers in the same container size, but offer more uses per container due to the concentrated form of the cleaner. As such, the shelf spacing and weight issues of such cleaners is not addressed by concentrated cleaning liquids.
Unit dose cleaning products are available for laundry applications and dishwasher applications, but these products typically come in tablet or pouch forms which take a long time to dissolve in water. Usually, the time it takes to dissolve exceeds 2 minutes and sometimes is as much as 5 minutes or more. One of the problems with these unit dose products is that they do not contain actives on or in the exterior portion of the film (for a pouch) or on the surface of a tablet which aid in the dissolving the product quickly and effectively in water.
In view of the current state of the art of cleaning products, there is a need for a cleaning product concentrate that is convenient to store, takes up less shelf space than typical liquid or granular cleaners, is convenient and easy to use, and which is at least as effective as standard liquid, liquid concentrate, aerosol or granular cleaning products.